Median house price goes up more than 25 per cent in Windsor

WINDSOR is Sydney’s fifth-best performing suburb in median sale prices, in the last financial year.

The figures, from Australian Property Monitors, showed the median Windsor house price went up by a whopping 25.3 per cent, though to put it in perspective, this figure was based on only 32 sales.

Windsor was bettered only by Kent-hurst, Tamarama, Kirribilli and Warrawee.

McGraths Hill did well too, its median price going up by 15.3 per cent over its 41 house sales.

Other reasonable performers were Pitt Town, up 6.6 per cent, Riverstone up 5.3 per cent, Glossodia up 4.7 per cent and Hobartville up 3.7 per cent.

However it wasn’t all good news for the Hawkesbury in the 600-suburb survey – the Hawkesbury also had the eighth worst performing suburb in Sydney – Kurrajong, whose median house price went down by 19.3 per cent (though this was on only 17 sales), and we had the second-worst performing suburb in units – North Richmond, where median unit prices went down by 26.7 per cent.

Other poorer performing areas house-wise were Bowen Mountain, where the median house price went down 7.8 per cent (from 14 sales), Kurrajong Heights down 6.5 per cent (from 20 sales) and Richmond down 3.7 per cent (from 121 sales).

The larger the number of sales, the more significant the result.

Many Hawkesbury townships did not have a percentage change listed as the numbers of sales were too low for the figures to be statistically significant (townships with less than 10 sales in the year didn’t get percentages quoted).

Many townships had very low numbers of sales in the last 12 months, indicating people are either happy living there or just couldn’t sell. For example Bilpin, Cattai and Agnes Banks each only had three sales, while Ebenezer and Mount Tomah had no sales.

The Hawkesbury suburbs with the most sales in raw numbers were Bligh Park with 123 sold, Richmond 121, South Windsor 101, North Richmond 74, and Hobartville 60.

The sales figures for 46 suburbs in the Hawkesbury and its fringes, as well as the rest of Sydney, were revealed in the annual Fairfax Domain Spring Property Guide (domain.com.au/spring).

However when the Gazette asked property valuer Dianne Morton for comment, she said the varied nature of our property market means these figures might not be as meaningful as first thought.

“The Hawkesbury market tends to perform outside of the general Sydney market trends due to the varied nature of property in the area,” she said.

“Although properties are turning over within the Hawkesbury, extended marketing periods are considered the norm for most of the townships.

“The statistic is only as good as the data and a median sale price is a poor indicator of value in the Hawkesbury. The data for Windsor appears to be skewed by the sale of some prestige properties within Windsor that transacted late 2011.

“Bowen Mountain has a very slow turnover of stock. Anyone can take a drive around the suburb and see countless For Sale signs that have been in place for extended periods.

“Market movement in the Hawk-esbury varies depending on location. As the data identifies, most suburbs have seen slow turnover of stock.

“However, the values and property types vary from neighbour to neighbour – for example, a basic dwelling in Kurrajong Village could potentially sell between $300,000 to $400,000, but up the road there was a recent sale of over $3 million.”

While the median Windsor house price has spiked, the sale of salubrious properties like these on the Peninsula can skew the figures. Photo: Geoff Jones